


Soulless

by sternflammenden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-07 00:39:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternflammenden/pseuds/sternflammenden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I was soulless.</i>  Aeron Greyjoy's past.</p>
<p>Written for Lydzi for the Summer got_exchange on LiveJournal</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soulless

I.  
He thinks in the back of his mind that he should really put a stop to Euron’s visits now that he is almost a man grown. When he was a boy, it was different because he had neither the strength of body nor the strength of years to realize exactly what his older brother found so mesmerizing in their bedroom games. He’d merely lain there motionless, his mind oddly blank as alien fingers sinuously ran along secret parts, spoiling him, using him. 

Aeron no longer has the nightmares that he did as a child. There is, of course, in the back of his mind, a frantic terror when something brushes the back of his neck, or when he hears the creak of an unoiled door swinging wild on its hinges, but those things are pushed aside easily. Drink so effortlessly dulls his darker memories, and quells his trembling muscles. Aeron takes to the taverns as a fish to water, at least that is how he thinks of it, for isn’t he just drowning part of himself there? It’s not as if he’s twitching and gasping on the docks, a hook bloodying his jaws. His father’s men cluster there, playing at outdrinking and outbragging each other, and it’s easy for Aeron to slip unnoticed among their ranks, to cadge enough ale to warm his belly and to numb his thoughts. He grows to love their rough laughter, their bawdy asides, and all is well. 

But one day, Euron strides in the doors, knocking them askew, grinning in his way that wounds like a dagger in the belly, his bright blue eyes shining with some hideous notion. Aeron is quick to shrink behind a cluster of oarsmen, stealing away as he hears his brother’s voice rising above the clangor like some sort of rotting velvet, spinning some twisted plan to Quellon’s men, bending a few of them, ignoring the rest. 

And that evening, his tone does not change when he comes to Aeron’s chamber, lips stained blue with that dreadful shade that he insists upon drinking, bitter gall to his younger brother’s unrefined palate, eyes smiling in their cold way, lips twisted in a parody of cheer. 

“I saw you,” he whispers, his hand on Aeron’s shoulder. The gesture might have been fatherly, had it come from a source of good intentions. “Don’t think that I didn’t. You hid from me.”

“I didn’t hide,” Aeron says, taking care to keep his voice neutral lest it hitch and betray him. “I dropped a coin. And besides that, I didn't even see you come in.”

Euron does not believe him, of course. “You mustn’t dare to hide from me, little brother,” he says, hand sliding to Aeron’s chest, where he fumbles with the laces on his tunic, twining them round a lazy finger. “We’re friends, are we not?” 

Aeron can only nod, a vague smile on his lips as Euron’s hand slides under rough wool to stroke his chest. His touch is surprisingly warm, and almost pleasing, were it a maid’s hand. And Aeron thinks on the serving girl who’d poured beer for the men that afternoon, her breasts barely contained by her bodice, hair kissed by fire, catching the last rays of the sun as they filtered through the grime-streaked window. Her hands would be warm too. And they’d wander even lower, toying with another set of laces, sliding in his breeches to pleasure him, bringing him off quickly. And that low chuckle that he hears must be from some amused old sot getting his jollies by watching their dirty little diversion. It can’t be his brother; after all, the tavern isn’t fit for such a fine gentleman as Euron Greyjoy. 

And when his bedsprings give as a weight lifts, as he hears footsteps cross to the door, dragging it so that the hinge screeches, it dissolves of course, and he is left to curl his lip in disgust at what he has been made into, no better than a saltwife, no better than a thrall, just a plaything really. And as he tries to sleep, he thinks on how tomorrow he will bend that girl over his knee and make this into a dim memory. 

 

II.   
“Catch it, Urri!” He is spinning the axes as though they were mere sticks, and that is what he spent most of the summer doing, hands fumbling with driftwood that he’d carved to resemble the deadly weapons, choosing the weightier pieces to simulate the feel of steel blades and leather bindings and heavy pine handles. Aeron had fancied impressing them all with his skills, had imagined himself the envy of his brothers with his fearless and flashy fingerdance. Perhaps even old Quellon might crack a smile when he returned from war, he’d thought, his own eyes crinkling in amusement at the thought of his father’s hardened expression breaking into mirth. 

Urrigon stood opposite him, a cocky expression on his face. “Of course I’ll catch it,” he said, shaking hair out of his eyes, as his slender fingers gripped the edge of the axehandle, palming it neatly. “You’re such an oaf, it’s easy to see where your throws will land.” 

They both laugh the easy laugh of children, of boys, of brothers with their shared secret jokes. 

Aeron grins, spinning about in the sand, spurring a wave of dust over his and Urrigon’s legs. He turns his back to his brother. “An oaf? I shouldn’t trust anything coming from a Greenlander, and a boy at that!” Although Urri is older, Aeron is taller, and makes much of this, although it is a well-worn joke between them. “Let’s see you make this one, then, if you can reach it.” He spins the axe over his head, trying to arc it high so that Urri will run long, stumbling into the sea to catch it, hoping to best his little brother. But the anticipated sounds of limbs crashing through waves do not come, and there is only a silence that unnerves him. 

Aeron is afraid to turn then, but he forces himself, and sees Urri sitting on the sand, clutching a hand, the ground in front of him stained red, his breeches scarlet, his face drained of color. 

“Get help,” Urri says, his voice catching in his throat, and Aeron can see the fear in his eyes as he turns to run for home. 

Later that night, he visits his brother, who lies reluctantly in bed with bandaged hand, supper untouched in front of him, and exclaims over what a clumsy fool he’s been. They poke at each other as they are wont, as brothers will do, and Aeron says before he goes, “Now people will think you’ve been in battle with those missing fingers. Wait until I tell them that you’re just too fumblehanded to catch an axe.”

But Urrigon shakes his head, grinning. “Missing fingers, nothing. Didn’t Step-Mother tell you? The Maester saved them.” He held up his bandaged hand. “Sewed them back on, just like mending hose.”

Aeron poked him in the ribs. “Best not forget yourself then tonight. I’d hate to see those pretty fingers mend crooked because you pleasure yourself too much.” 

Their laughter, stilted though, fills the room, and Aeron leaves for his own bed. 

A few weeks later, when the wound has turned septic, when Urri burns and mumbles in a delirium, and finally stills, Aeron runs to the beach, casting the axes into the sea, flinging them far and wide, as hard as he can throw, not sure if what streaks his face is sweat from his efforts or tears that he would rather not contemplate. 

He doesn’t go home that night. He heads for the inn, the brothel, and takes the first wench he sees, turning her over and battering against her, laughing as her feigned cries of pleasure fill his ears. It’s pleasant there, for the sounds of the drunken men carousing in the downstairs hall and the shrieks of laughter from the girls fill his head, and he doesn’t hear the nagging twinge of guilt, and after a while, he can’t even remember Urri’s voice, twisting and jesting and cutting through him like a finely-honed blade. 

 

III.   
The wench on his lap shifts her weight, and Aeron moves with her, his cock twitching as her firm flesh slides against it, muscles tensing as she attempts to find a comfortable position. They are both clutching flagons of ale, and as he pulls her closer, burying his face in her breasts, she throws back her head, peals of laughter echoing as her drink puddles to the floor. There is a solid clang as the mug hits the wooden slats below, but they pay it and the damage no mind. After all, a woman’s teats can encompass the world, and Aeron is not one to shy away from such adventure. 

One hand slides up her skirts, fingers fumbling about for the sweet spot and he’s delighted to find that she’s not wearing smallclothes.

“Oh, clever girl!” he murmurs, a grin slowly spreading across his face. Aeron’s not as handsome as Euron; nor is he as steadfast as Victarion, or as charismatic as Balon, but he knows where his charms lie and would prefer to use his talents to make a tavern girl come fast and hard instead of squandering them on board a ship bound for who cares where. “Clever, clever girl,” he adds, sliding his fingers inside of her, thumb pressing firmly on the nub that lies between her lower lips. 

“As you say,” she rejoins, her breath coming sharp as he strokes her, wiggling fingers back and forth, the grin on his face spreading until it is a leer, his sharp blue eyes dancing with amusement. “But what about you?” Although her voice is thinned with maintaining her balance and her composure, her fingers brush the front of his breeches and the hardness that strains against them. “Someone needs to tend to _that_.” 

“Oh, someone will in time, I have no doubt.” He presses his thumb in, and when she gasps, and when he feels her twitch around his fingers, he knows he’s merited at least her lips around his cock, if not more. 

And later, he takes the wench to his bed upstairs, bids her relieve him while his thrall watches from the corner, envy writ large on the young man’s features as she slides out of her dress, as Aeron’s hands grasp and squeeze her buxom figure, and as they tussle on the bed. The scowl dissipates, however, when Aeron, bored, sated after several rounds of battling with lips and tongues, motions him to the bed.

“Well boy, you had your chance to watch,” he says, his voice light. “Might as well join us.” 

“If my lord bid it so.” He is a Greenlander, a Northerner, awkward, uncomfortable with the earthly frankness of Pyke, but Aeron knows that he will not protest, and when he and the girl pull him into their bed, he does not protest, but permits them to tease and poke him. 

“Think of it as an education,” Aeron says snidely as he tweaks the boy’s nipple with practiced fingers, his other hand idly brushing his reluctantly stiffening cock. 

The wench’s raucous laughter makes it all seem a game, a show, as she lies in the crook of Aeron’s arm, her breath hot on his ear. 

When there is a knock at the door an hour or so later, they’re all a-tangle, drowsing on each other, thinking of nothing but their own sated pleasure, their aching muscles. Aeron is unconcerned, waving a hand at the door, the wine still pulsing through him. 

“Well, come in,” he says, voice slurred with several types of intoxication, and when his brother enters, his expression twisting from resignation to disgust, Aeron cannot help but laugh. It is too ridiculous, him in bed with two, one of each sex, and his brother aghast at the sight. It always amuses him how these warriors are so unmanned by the glimpse of another man’s cock. After all, do they not take thralls, do they not reave and rape their ways through each port that they conquer? Were he a more serious man his bile would rise. But he is Aeron, he is lighthearted, and so he laughs until his breath comes hard. 

“Victarion,” he says then, still sniggering. His older brother has waited patiently, frowning, until Aeron has resumed some semblance of control, scowling at the sight before him, hands folded orderly on the hilt of the longsword that he bears. That amuses Aeron as well, the thought of his humorless brother donning arms to navigate a brothel. 

“You must dress, and quickly,” Victarion says, doing his best to ignore the sight before him. “There is no time for such foolishness.” He rummages through the pile of clothing on the floor, tossing what seems to be his younger brother’s to him as he stretches on the bed. 

“Dress? But I’ve barely started here.” Aeron spreads his arms, an easy grin making its way onto his face. 

“And now you are finished,” Victarion says, his voice terse. “Out,” he says to the wench, to the thrall, and they scatter at the unbidden threat.

Aeron pulls a face but begrudgingly accepts his breeches, sliding them on slowly. “You didn’t have to do _that_ , Brother.” He begins to lace his boots, which he’d kicked under the bed a few hours earlier. “To what do I owe this visit? What sin have I committed? Which sin have I not?” 

Victarion finds no humor in his jape, and draws a breath. “Our King has declared war.”

The smile freezes on Aeron’s face. It is impossible, ridiculous, to contemplate such a thing. Balon is fiery, Balon broods on imagined slights, but to wage war, and against what?

“A rebellion,” Victarion says then, smiling grimly for the first time. His powerful hands caress the well-worn hilt of his sword. “Balon’s rebellion, the Greenlander fools call it.” 

Aeron is dressed now, and shakes his head. “And I’ve a part to play, I imagine.”

Victarion nods. “As do we all, and we will take what is ours, what should have been ours all along. For what is dead may never die.” He stares at Aeron expectantly, but his brother does not reply, does not acknowledge what has been said, and the words ring hollow in the still air of the bedchamber. 

“Well, then,” Aeron says, now that he is dressed. “To war we go.” And he follows Victarion out of the stew, hiding his amusement and curiosity, a flippancy that does not die away until he is sucked under the water, plunged beneath the waves, and almost taken by a greedy god who slumbers at the bottom of the sea. It’s only when he rises to the surface, his old skin shed like so much offal, that he can cringe at the callow youth, the jests, the time wasted on whores and drink and other troublesome amusements. 

 

IV.   
He lies on the beach at the end of the day, the rocks and driftwood his pillow and mattress, the seaweed and his ragged robes his coverlet, his blankets. More would be godless, more would be indulgence, would distract his mind and his soul from his life’s mission. Aeron does not begrudge the Drowned God for putting his finger on him, for lifting him up from the wreck, for buoying him to the surface and sparing his life. Had it not been for that mercy, his life would have been nothing but a waste, a mockery. 

The lull of the sea crashing against the piles, the call of birds as they wheel one last dance above the waves, are sweeter to him than any tavern wench’s voice, any wife’s sweet nothings whispered in his ear, any child’s joyous cry. 

_Five spared today_ , he thinks, shaking his head at how few come, how few are willing to put themselves aside in service, in duty. But perhaps, it is just as well. Better the godly man, the devout, the true, than hoards of panderers and fools. 

As the waves lull him to sleep, Aeron allows himself the indulgence of remembering, and as his thoughts trace back through those wasted years, a thought comes to him. It is not a new one; but it is a sickening thing, a shame. 

_I was soulless._

And he shudders, wrapping his thin body in the equally thin fabric that covers him, mere mortal flesh, a vessel, a messenger, and he tries to sleep. But sleep does not come so he waits until the dawn.


End file.
